Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is a technology that can be actively utilized in the next-generation fields of traffic safety, telematics, and intelligent traffic systems. Unlike conventional communication technologies between a base station and a terminal, V2V communication is generally performed using communication devices installed in vehicles by establishing a communication network therebetween and through autonomous distribution controlling, without being controlled by a base station.
An IEEE 802.11CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance) scheme, a standard of wireless local area networks (LANs), has been researched as a medium access control (MAC) protocol of V2V communication. A MAC structure basically includes a distributed coordination function (DCF) based on CSMA/CA.
Recent V2V communication employs multi-hop technology enabling a vehicle to perform communication with another vehicle within radio coverage even or a remote vehicle outside radio coverage through relay of an intervening vehicle therebetween. However, multi-hop technology can suffer from excessively large communication loads, as compared with a one-hop-based communication scheme.